The lack of coordination between the Ministry of Health and Social Development is again cause for observation of the Auditor General of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish). This time, the victim is the Program for Assisted Discharge (PREASIS, for its acronym in Spanish) a reinsertion in the community and employment for patients who are discharged from the City’s mental hospitals.

The report discusses the program conducted under the Mental Health Act 448, which promotes the care and support of those in discharge programs that don’t have a family or group with sufficient resources. While the AGCBA ensures that PREASIS "achieved an improvement in integration policy" they also state that "the actions between ministries are not articulated," and that because of this, different "gaps" are generated.

This is not the only affected program, in fact, in a previous publication; the Auditor.info echoed the shortcomings identified by the Audit on the dismantling of these same agencies to carry out the implementation of "comprehensive law addictions" in the City.

The consequences of this lack of coordination, the watchdog says that PREASIS, dependent on Social Development, "is generating its own demand" and that "the health system is not making direct referrals for people who need them." According to the Coordinator of the program, "it’s the opposite of what it should be," adding that referrals are sought "in the context of an almost custom task for generation of leads." There are hospital visits, "and phone calls” they exemplified.

The AGCBA found another flaw generated by the dismantling of the ministries: "The program ignores the number of potential beneficiaries." Again, the Coordinator explained to the audit team (in February 2011) that "the number of people in discharge conditions in the Neuropsychiatric Hospitals is unknown." In this situation, the watchdog requested such information (potential beneficiaries) to the Department of Mental Health of the Ministry of Health, but that data was never provided.

Along the same lines, the auditors found "another demonstration of the difficulties of coordination with the Health Sector" when they analyzed the Pilot Program for Subsidized reinsertion outside institutions in the field of the Ministry of Health. This is addressed to the patients of the José Tiburcio Borda Hospital and aims to facilitate the process of family life, social rehabilitation, and social reintegration of persons, by allocating subsidies. Of the 175 beneficiaries recorded, only five were referred to PREASIS.

The report adopted in December of last year on 2009 data, indicates that people enter the program derived from the Mental Hospitals Braulio Moyano, José Tiburcio Borda, and Torcuato de Alvear, and occasionally other Hospitals of the City of Buenos Aires.

REDBA Civil Partnership

In 2009 an agreement between the Government of Buenos Aires and REDBA Civil Partnership was signed to carry out a project for 'Family Rebinding', for 60 patients of the Moyano Hospital and the convivial unites I, II, and III of the PREASIS.

The agreement states that the REDBA should submit bimonthly reports and a technical team of the Directorate General of Civil Society Strengthening (the PREASIS) would make accessing monitoring facility and request documentation. However, AGCBA detected that management "does not ask the PREASIS for the reports regarding the management of NGOs."

The audit states that "neither the Building Directorate of Civil Society nor did PREASIS conduct reports (beyond a “generic report on November 2009") to account for the activities set forth in the agreement and the results".

Finally, the report argues that "the professionals that are part of the team REDBA and, consequently, cannot be determined (or assess) the type of operation conducted by each professional is not identified."